How Women Give: The Baby Boomers and Beyond

	Margaret May Damen of The Institute for Women and Wealth taught a session at the AFP Central Florida Chapter’s Diversity in Philanthropy Conference in June titled “Embrace Boom-Generation Women’s Idealism.”

Female philanthropists are becoming heavy hitters in the charitable sector as their command of wealth grows in the United States and elsewhere.

In a report by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in 2005, 3.4 million, or 46.3 percent, of the nation’s top wealth holders were women in 2001. This represents a 36 percent increase from the prior reporting in 1998. The IRS defines top wealth holders as individuals with gross assets in excess of $675,000. These women had a combined net worth of US$6.291 trillion, an increase of nearly 50 percent from that reported in 1998.

And, because women are likely to outlive their husbands and inherit their wealth, in addition to gaining the inheritance from their parents, women are expected to eventually hold much of the US$41 trillion expected to pass from generation to generation over the next 50 years, says Andrea Pactor, director of the Women’s Philanthropy Institute (WPI) at The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University in Indianapolis.

So what do female baby boomers expect from fundraisers? According to Margaret May Damen, CFP®, CLU, ChFC, CDFA, founder and president of the Institute for Women and Wealth in Palm City, Fla., women want to be able to connect their deeply held values to noticeable social change. She explains that baby boom women have succeeded in their careers and are now entering a phase of self-rediscovery. Women are ripping off the “masks” that were required in the workplace and are determining “what they want” to see changed in the world.

Damen taught a session at the AFP Central Florida Chapter’s Diversity in Philanthropy Conference on June 7, 2007, titled “Embrace Boom-Generation Women’s Idealism.” She said that women need to discover their passions for a cause “so that when detours come up in the form of solicitations for other good and noble causes, a woman can make confident, strategic decisions in her giving.”

Above all, Damen believes there is strong potential for growth in women’s giving, especially from those born between 1946 and 1964. Scholars and practitioners agree. However, harnessing this power for philanthropic purposes requires new ways of looking at women’s giving and how women are changing philanthropy.

A Different Kind of Giving

According to the WPI, women do have unique methods of giving. The Six C’s: Women’s Motivations for Giving, published by the institute, says female philanthropists are apt to collaborate in supporting a cause, they wish to form partnerships with the people who are connected to the cause and they want to see creative solutions to problems. They are opposed to simply preserving the status quo through unrestricted support, the report adds.

Is it surprising that women’s involvement in philanthropy is different than men’s? No, says Cynthia Schmae, chief operations officer of the Women’s Funding Network in San Francisco. Since women have different ways of communicating with their peers and getting involved in their communities, it is only natural that their methods of philanthropy would be different from the traditional means.

Even the ways that women and men hear about and learn to trust in a cause is different, Schmae explains. For example, if a woman sees a problem happening with her local school, she will likely get on the phone with her network and mobilize as a group. Women want to be asked directly, by someone they trust, to be a partner in a cause.

“The women’s funds that are members of the Women’s Funding Network model this approach, with a style of philanthropy that is horizontal and democratic, and where donors and community members have equal seats at the decision-making table,” Schmae explains.

A fundraiser, then, should approach female donors with opportunities to connect to a cause, to assemble with others and to get involved with more than just the pocketbook, Schmae says.

Changing Times

Kathleen McCarthy, Ph.D., director of the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, agrees that women are a force in the world of philanthropy, with more women creating foundations than ever before and many more women in the United States giving gifts of $50 million or more.

However, she argues that cultivating female donors is actually becoming more and more a matter of engaging women’s intellect and gearing “the ask” to methods formerly attributed to men’s giving.

McCarthy says that with women’s increased education levels and the economic inroads women have made since the 1960s, fundraisers should move past the idea that women have to connect emotionally to causes.

“I think that there has been a sea change in women’s giving, and it’s only going to be more pronounced with time,” McCarthy emphasizes. “The old idea was that women required a lot of cultivation, sometimes years. Now they are in a position to make a decision much more quickly than their mothers did.

“Methods of cultivation will have to change, particularly for the boomers and their daughters,” she adds. “A lot needs to be rethought. Young women are looking for something different, including networking opportunities and new ways of engaging intellectually, and not just emotionally.”

For Further Reading:

The Transformative Power of Women’s Philanthropy: New Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising by Martha A. Taylor and Sondra Shaw-Hardy (Jossey-Bass, 2006).

Ethical Wills: Putting Your Values on Paper, 2nd Edition, by Barry K. Baines, M.D., (Perseus Publishing, 2006).

Women’s Lives, Women’s Legacies, Passing Your Beliefs and Blessings to Future Generations by Rachael Freed (Fairview Press, 2003).

Inspired Philanthropy by Tracy Gary and Melissa Kohner (Jossey-Bass, 2002).

Resource Links:  

Women’s Philanthropy Institute

The Institute for Women and Wealth

Women’s Funding Network